Suhail Malik Lecture: Who's Afraid in/of the Artmarket?

Suhail Malik Lecture: Who's Afraid in/of the Artmarket?

On July 24 and 25, 2015, Suhail Malik visited ICA Miami for a two-day talk and practice-oriented workshop on the art market. Read Malik’s contribution to ICA Ideas below:

“The proliferation of artfairs across the world indicate how the rapid growth of the artmarket since the late 1990s has already massively changed the art system. Equally, the commercialization of art is treated with suspicion by those who hold that art is not a commodity and should not be one. However, as tax and offshore regulations change globally, the artmarket is in fact at the beginning of the next stage of its expansion. Following current patterns, what can be expected is: escalating prices for an increasingly concentrated section of the market; a corresponding narrowing of art’s power base; a splitting of the contemporary art market; and perhaps further resignation form those who do not do well from this change of power dynamics. These transformations do not only affect the economics and sociology of contemporary art but also of what the art itself is: commodity? asset? loss leader? What and how is art to be taken if its price is an intrinsic part of its meaning?”

Suhail Malik is Visiting Faculty for 2012–2015 at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard, New York, and Programme Co-Director of the MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, London, where he holds a Readership in Critical Studies.

Part of Idea 002: Critical Cosmopolitanism

The artists of Guccivuitton have frequently explored the relationship between artist and location, creating alternative methods of presentation and exchange. Idea 002 addresses the collective’s efforts to present and advance scholarship on regional material culture as it relates to international flows of capital and information. This line of inquiry involves a meditation on the development of Miami as a cultural center seeking to service international and regional audiences.